Innocents slain in Syrian conflict remembered at Jacksonville vigil

Thursday

Mohammed Mona knows something about the toll the Syrian civil war has taken. His nephew was tortured to death after government forces rounded up protesters during a 2011 uprising in Lattakia.

Mona left his homeland behind in 1974, but four of his sisters and other relatives still remain. Not a day ticks by that he doesn’t fear for their lives. While he tries his best to stay in touch, the stark reality of the conflict ripping his native country apart haunts him to this day.

"I have some sleepless nights," he said. "Sometimes when there’s a significant bombing where my family is. There’s not much bombing there, but there’s a scarcity of pretty much everything, basic materials like food to electricity and water."

The 69-year-old physician was among the roughly 40 people who showed up Thursday evening at Hemming Park to remember those slain in the civil war.

The candlelight vigil, organized by the Jacksonville chapter of the Women’s March Florida, was one of hundreds held nationwide to shine a light on the humanitarian crisis.

Jacksonville is home to the sixth-largest Syrian population in the country.

Thursday’s vigil comes a week after the United States launched nearly 60 tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation for a sarin gas attack April 4 that killed nearly 90 people in Syria. The air base targeted is believed to be where the attack originated.

"You may call it symbolic, but there’s a message there," Mona said. "Obviously this is not going to bring an end to the problem, but it sends a message."

Organizers called for U.S. leaders to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis, including welcoming additional Syrian refugees into the states, in lieu of further military intervention.

"It’s hard to say you’re fighting for people’s freedom when you won’t feed them, when you won’t give them refuge," said organizer Bonnie Hendrix.

The vigil follows last Friday’s protest of the U.S. military strikes in Syria. That erupted in a violent clash between protesters, counter-protesters and police. It led to six arrests, including five anti-war demonstrators.

Hendrix said she wanted to avoid a repeat of that incident. She said the group reached out to Sheriff Mike Williams in advance to inform him of the vigil, a point underscored by a noticeable police presence on hand.

"We feel that that situation clearly could have been avoided," she said. "The root cause of that was the lack of intervention at the beginning of the situation. It’s not our intent to have that kind of scenario play out tonight."

Hendrix said the U.S. needs to step up efforts to relocate refugees. She said millions of people have been displaced amid the bloodshed. And while European countries have admitted many, the U.S. has resettled roughly 18,000 since 2012, according to MigrationPolicy.org.

Not everyone was opposed to the recent show of force by the U.S. military. Samer Samsam, 54, was holding a sign with pictures of children killed in last week’s attack. He said the missile strikes are long overdue.

"If it happened sooner, they probably wouldn’t have had this chemical attack," said Samsam, who left his native Lattakia in 1982 at the urging of his father.

"They don’t want to you speak and say the truth," he said.

Speaking out is what got his 26-year-old neighbor killed, Samsam said.

The neighbor’s crime? Carrying a handwritten sign that called for Assad’s ouster.

His punishment? The young man was tortured to death. Told their son had died of a heart attack in custody, his parents had to sign a waiver just to retrieve his body.

"That’s what we’re living with and that’s what we’ve been silenced about for all these years," Samsam said.

Garrett Pelican: (904) 359-4385

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